The Accident
by boshrocks
Summary: Casey has an accident and somehow Derek can still hear her...even though he knows she is gone. much much much better than it sounds...i suck at summeries. read and review please
1. The Accident

"You're such an immature jerk Derek! How could you do that to me?!" Casey shouted and the words echoed around Derek's mind. There was a flash of white light that blinded him and then Casey's long agonised, terrified scream accompanied by the sound of something hitting something else hard and cracks that sounded like bones as the scream came to a sudden stop.

Derek awoke with a start and gazed around him trying to work out where the hell he was. White walls. Long corridor. A certain horrible smell…disinfectant.

A hospital.

Rubbing his eyes he realised that he wasn't in a bed, he was in a chair. And Edwin was asleep, leaning on him from the next chair. Looking past him Derek saw Lizzie with Marti curled up in her lap. Lizzie looked back at him with tear stained eyes, rimmed with red. She had obviously been crying for hours.

Opposite them was a large window and Derek could see his dad and Nora in the room behind it. He could also see _her_.

She was deathly white with tubes sticking into her and a large bandage around the top of her head and forehead. There was also a huge purple bruise that took up almost the whole of her face. He couldn't even see her beautiful hair.

It was all his fault. If he hadn't pushed her…

"Derek it's not your fault. She'll be fine." Lizzie said gently, reading his mood.

"You don't know that. You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't. But you carried her all the way home."

"She wasn't moving, what else could I do?"

"Exactly Derek. You shouldn't feel guilty."

"But I do." He tried not to let his quiet voice tremble.

Lizzie observed him quietly. She told him to go and talk to her. Maybe apologising would help.

Glumly he nodded and shifted Edwin onto Lizzie who raised her eyebrows comically.

George and Nora looked up at him as he stood in the doorway, unsure if he was allowed to come in. They nodded and he carefully inserted himself into the room.

"Can I talk to her? There's something I need to get off my chest." He asked quietly.

"It'll be awfully one sided." George joked weakly as they got up to leave.

"She won't hear much, but perhaps she'll hear a little bit." Nora said tearfully as George helped her out of the room.

Derek took Nora's vacated chair by the bedside.

He looked at her unmoving body and reached out for her hand. It was cold and he couldn't quite feel a pulse, but he knew there must be one because a machine was beeping steadily somewhere in the room.

"Case? I don't know if you can hear me, but I have to apologise. I've felt terrible since the accident. I never meant to push you, and I certainly didn't want this. Case, I'm also sorry about the fight. I shouldn't have meddled with you and Max. I just wanted what was best for you. I was worried about what he was doing to you. What you didn't know about. We really need to learn not to meddle with each other's lives don't we?" Derek chuckled tearfully. "I don't know why I meddled this time. I guess it's because I really do care for you, more than I ever let on. It's a pity you can't hear it, now that I finally have the courage to tell you."

"Don't worry, I can." He looked up and saw her smiling a very small smile, as though the small simple movement hurt. "I understand, Derek. I'm sorry too." She broke off and coughed horribly. "I have to tell you, before it's too late. I can tell that I don't have a lot of time left but you have to know."

"Know what?" he asked her eagerly but gently.

"That I've loved you since the second I met you." she coughed again. "And that no

matter where I go," her voice grew very hoarse "I will always love you. Tell the others I love them." She finished in a whisper.

Casey squeezed his hand briefly and smiled a little again. Then she closed her eyes and Derek became aware that the steadily beeping machine was now giving out a continuous beep.

"Oh no. Casey? Casey! Don't do this! Don't go! Please stay with me!" tears rolled down his cheeks as he leant over her. "Casey, I need you with me. Casey!" he wailed and the rest of the family rushed into the room. Derek collapsed over her and sobbed piteously.

They had lost Casey. At that moment of realisation everyone broke down. How could they live without Casey?


	2. The Voice

Derek didn't know for how long he had been crying. It felt like days, although it was probably only a matter of hours. He couldn't believe she had really gone.

"Why are you crying?" he heard a woman saying. Assuming it to be Nora or Lizzie, although it didn't sound like either of them, he chose not to answer also assuming it to be rhetorical. "Derek, you don't need to cry over your loss."

"Yes I do. She's gone, forever."

"No, she hasn't."

"How do you know that?" he looked up from his pillow and saw no one. "Who are you? Where are you?"

"I'm sitting on your bed, just like I used to. Can you not see me?"

Indeed Derek could feel there was someone else on the bed, but he could see no on.

"Who are you? Who's there?"

Silence met him.

"I could have sworn there was someone there." he said to himself in confusion.

He stumbled out of the room and into the bathroom. As he bent over the sink to wash his face Casey's toothbrush caught his eye. He looked up at the medicine cabinet above the sink and chuckled slightly as he remembered the prank she had played on him once. She had tied several bottles together and then tied them to his toothbrush and when he picked up his toothbrush everything fell out of the cabinet into the sink.

She was always doing things like that, surprising him by fighting back. She had always seemed too nice to dish out payback, and he had always underestimated her.

"Stop thinking about her." he told himself and turned away from the sink.

He wandered downstairs to see if he could find something to take his mind off her. Edwin was slumped on the couch hugging Lizzie and trying to console her.

"I know it's hard, Liz but we'll get through it somehow and the pain will get less soon. Some help Derek?" Edwin petitioned his brother.

"We all miss her, but I think that distraction could make it less hard to cope with. Why don't I put a movie on? I'm sure Casey wouldn't want us to mope over her. She'd want us to keep busy."

"How would you know what Casey would want? She's dead, and keeping busy won't change that." Lizzie shouted before jumping up and running upstairs.

"I'll put Ice Age on, shall I? A bit of comedy might make us feel better." Derek suggested to his brother who nodded.

"Ooh! I love that film!" Derek thought he heard Casey say. He looked around the room as though daring his eyes to see her. Seeing no one he plopped down onto his lounger and then hopped up again since it was icily cold.

"What's up bro?"

"Cold, like eerily cold. Also, like there was someone else already sitting there."

"Sorry Derek." Came Casey's voice again.

"Casey?" Derek said to the room.

"Knew you'd figure it out." replied the voice.

"Derek? Are you crazy?" Edwin asked in concern.

"No. I don't think so." Derek said absently.

The doorbell rang as he spoke almost jerking him out of his reverie. Edwin went to answer it. Sam and Emily came in, not knowing what had happened.

"Hey, Edwin."

"Why are you wearing black? And why's Derek wearing black?" Emily asked.

"Who died?" Sam said noting the look on Edwin's face as Derek kept searching the room for Casey.

"Casey did." Edwin said shortly.

"NO SHE DIDN'T!" Derek shouted. "She's NOT gone!"

"What's up with him?" Emily asked.

"He's either in denial or he's gone crazy due to grief."

"Ok, now I'm scared because I don't actually think you're kidding." Sam said.

"I'm not kidding. Casey died last night in the hospital. And Derek was there."

"Casey's singing." Derek said suddenly and dreamily. "She's singing to me."

"No she isn't Derek." Edwin said patiently.

"Yes she is. Casey come back! Don't go away now. Please come back. Come back and sing."

"That's getting very creepy now."

"Casey's really gone?" Emily asked.

"Unfortunately yes."

Emily broke down and Edwin and Sam helped her onto the couch.


End file.
